A Note to the IC Workforce on the Whistleblower

Posted: November 14th, 2019

By Michael J. Morell

During his 33-year career at CIA, Michael Morell served as Deputy Director for over three years, a job in which he managed the Agency's day-to-day operations, represented the Agency at the White House and Congress, and maintained the Agency's relationships with intelligence services and foreign leaders around the world. Michael also served twice as Acting Director. Michael's senior assignments at CIA also included serving for two years as the Director of Intelligence, the Agency's top analyst, and for two years as Executive Director, the CIA's top administrator—managing human resources, the budget, security, and information technology. Michael was the only person who was both with President Bush on September 11th, and with President Obama on May 1st, when Bin Laden was brought to justice.

OPINION — It is common for the leadership of the Intelligence Community to send notes to the workforce. The leaderships’ thoughts on all sorts of issues – from intelligence successes and failures to key personnel assignments and critical budget decisions and, yes, sometimes when the IC appears in the media as source or subject – are an important way to keep the workforce informed, to give them a learned perspective on an issue, and to bind the workforce together.

The many directors with whom I worked at CIA regularly sent messages to the workforce. DNIs did so as well, although less frequently. I did so when I served as Acting Director. I even once sent a note to the CIA workforce on the movie Zero Dark Thirty because the film sold itself as based on fact but I believed it did not accurately portray – in a way that did a disservice to the men and women of the Agency – a number of aspects of the operation to bring bin Ladin to justice.

I do not know whether or not the current Director of National Intelligence Joe McGuire has sent a message to the IC workforce on the whistleblower, but I sure hope so because the whistleblower deserves his full-throated support and the workforce needs to know that they should act in a similar fashion if they see wrongdoing.

I believe the DNI should have been the one to send this note rather than the Director of CIA because the government has not confirmed that the whistleblower works at CIA. That is only alleged by the media. For my part, I do not know, independent of the media, where the whistleblower works.

Given a grotesque comment I saw Monday evening, I wanted to write my own note to the IC workforce and, indeed, to the American people. On Monday, a former US Attorney equated the whistleblower to John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln. I was appalled and angered by such an outrageous and despicable comment. I believe that the former US Attorney, Joe diGenova, should apologize and that all members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, should denounce the comment in the strongest possible terms. The DNI should do so as well.

Here is my note to the women and men of the IC:

Dear former IC Colleagues,

All of you know, whether you serve in the Washington, DC area or at a distant post in a war zone, that one of your colleagues believed he/she saw wrongdoing by our government and that they reported it to Congress by going through the established whistleblower process.

I want all of you to know my strong support for the whistleblower. I believe that the whistleblower did the right thing. As a government employee, you are all called to report waste, fraud, and abuse and to do so not by going to the media but by going to Congress, through a process outlined in law. That is what the whistleblower did, and that is what I would want each of every one of you to do, if put in the same position.

I consider the whistleblower a patriot. I saw many types of bravery in my 33-year CIA career; this is the perhaps the bravest thing I have ever seen in Washington.

The whistleblower deserves the IC to make every effort to protect his/her identity; he/she deserves any necessary physical security, which the IC should be committed to providing; and he/she deserves IC public pushback on the vitriol, such as Monday’s comment by the former US attorney, that is already coming his/her way and is certain to continue in the hyper politicized environment in which we live.

I am struck that of all the many people who knew about the activities that the whistleblower was concerned about, it took an officer of the IC to report it, to call it out. I am not surprised by that because the IC’s ethos, etched into the wall in the CIA lobby “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free,” runs so strong in your veins.

The whistleblower is a shining example of one of the things that makes the IC such a national treasure. He/she should be a model for you all.

Michael

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